Cons:

The silly season in politics begins as Barack Obama and John McCain face off for the Presidency of the United States. While news reports cast this as a clash of Good vs. Evil (or Evil vs. Good depending on which way the media bias falls) the dedicated strategy gamers over at Stardock decided that we all needed a break from elephants and donkeys trampling over everything on their way to the White House. Their quick fix is The Political Machine 2008, a light-hearted value-priced "beer & pretzels" simulation of the US Presidential election that offers some fun strategic gameplay along with the profound realization that all politicians are basically bobbleheads.

The premise of The Political Machine 2008 is about as topical as it gets. Players can harness their inner Karl Roves to guide cute McCain or Obama characters or a number of other political heavy hitters including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton or Abraham Lincoln through a 41-week campaign on their way to Presidential glory. Each candidate is presented in a cute little bobblehead form that does a surprisingly good job of conveying the essential character of the person they're supposed to be representing. Should the included candidates be unsatisfactory (and really, how could they not be?) the game offers a terrific create-a-candidate system that owes a not-small debt to Nintendo's Mii system. In our case, we used it to create simulations of GameSpy editors that came surprisingly close to the real thing (and were thus pretty much unelectable).

Under the candy-coated exterior there's a pretty robust strategy game. Every candidate in the game is given a series of RPG-like characteristics that rate their personal qualities and abilities such as charisma, personal appearance, fund-raising ability, credibility and experience. Each of these will have an impact on the way a player must run their campaign. "Media Bias," for example, will impact how much of an uphill battle your candidate has in swaying independent voters (George W. Bush rates a one while Hollywood golden child Al Gore nets a nine). "Experience," on the other hand, determines how difficult it is to get the endorsement of various special interest groups (here Barack Obama nets a two while Dick Cheney scores a 10).

Once players have picked their candidate, party and opponent, play proceeds to a stylized version of the U.S. map with all 50 states highlighted. The player can then move their candidate from state to state performing as many actions each week as their physical stamina will allow. Actions include building campaign offices that can raise money or build up political capital used to hire political operatives like smear merchants, or garner all-important endorsements from fictional political action groups like the Christian Confederation or the National Association for Women. Players can also give speeches, run issues-oriented ads on topics such as the war in Iraq, illegal immigration or the high price of gas, hold fund-raisers or appear on nationally broadcast programs like "Barry King Live" and "The Coldcut Repertoire." Once a candidate is out of stamina, the week is over. Once 41-weeks have gone by, it's Election Day, where the game tallies awareness versus how well the candidates' positions synch with that of the state to decide a winner.